Kitchen worktops in Hounslow Heath

Yes. Ex-local maisonettes and houses with small square kitchens, standard 600mm base runs on two walls, and replacement tops on existing carcasses rather than full remodels. Extensions are rare. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

Postwar council-built house, 1960s maisonette and 1930s semi. These are built in dense concrete, so support for a peninsula or an end panel goes in with proper anchors rather than plugs. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

Estate roads with parking courts, bollards and tight turning heads, and some blocks are walk-up with access along an external deck. Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Fire doors stay shut, so the carry route is longer. These kitchens are almost never square and the walls are dense concrete, so expect to scribe both ends and drill rather than chase for an upstand.

A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Appliance gaps are checked against the new thickness. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A day out of use, told to whoever lives there. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Windows sit high and the sill line crosses the middle of the run, which limits what can go above the worktop. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Full height needs a flat wall and a finished electrician.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. The island top is the one that may want its own slab.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. No money changes hands before the template. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The original plan had one sink position, and moving it means taking a waste through a wall that does not want to be cut. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. An upstand asks less of old plaster than a panel does.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. The shape is already there to be measured, which makes the template straightforward and leaves the strip-out as the part that actually needs planning. Level the units first, measure the shape second.